Harm
by LapizLasuli
Summary: Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi. Making things more bearable. Or trying to... Spoilers for 4.08. Series: Boxed In, companion piece to Chaos, Toll, Perspectives, Air.


**Title:** Harm  
**Summary:** Making things more bearable. Or trying to.  
**Characters:** Michael Scofield, Sara Tancredi.  
**Genre:** General. Spoilers for 4.08  
**Series:** Boxed In  
**Rating:** PG-13

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_I can see your eyes  
I know when they're telling me a truth.  
I can feel your heart  
Especially when it's on the roof  
Of my mouth._

_-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  
_

"Michelle."

He rose and leant on an elbow.

"Taylor. Michelle Taylor. The name of the guard who helped me escape. Who was killed for it," she explained, flatly.

"I'm sorry, Sara..."

"I didn't even know her name. Gretchen told me. After I held a scalpel to her throat and made her bleed." She stopped at the distress in his eyes. Watched the furrow form between them.

He sat up straight, panic welling. "You saw- met Gretchen? Alone? How- "

"Self. She asked. Apparently, I was a problem to diffuse- No, it's okay, Michael. Really. I refused, at first - I wasn't interested in anything she had to say. Any apologies she might offer for what she did." She heard the harshness of his breathing, and looked down. "But I realised, later, that there was something I...needed from her. So, I went."

"Sara, I didn't want you alone when- if you ever saw her- "

"Not your decision, Michael. And it was something I had to do on my own. Confront her." She grasped one of his hands, and held on tightly. "She talked about clean slates. Evening the score. And five minutes. She gave me five minutes and a cord to do just that."

"You mean she wanted you to..."

She nodded at his sickened expression. Silently acknowledged the relief she felt that he wasn't hardened - immune - to the kind of violence he had lived with for months. "There were- Her back was a replica of mine. No. _Mine_ was the replica. Michael, how- why would she think I'd agree to do that?" she asked, reliving the dazed disbelief she'd felt then. "She was so...matter-of-fact about it all."

"Maybe because it happened to her and she did? Because she never had a choice- "

"But there's always a choice!"

"Sara, I'm the last person who'd want to defend her, but I think we both know that some choices are so untenable they aren't really choices at all." As she looked away, he paused, feeling an almost unbearable sadness. "Perhaps, she just thinks that, given the chance, everybody would live by the same rules."

She leant against his chest, as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. "Gandhi said _'_an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind'... And you know, I think I could let go of what she did to me, but Michelle? No."

After a few minutes of silence, he gently prodded, "The scalpel?"

"Last minute protection. Gretchen's agenda was all that mattered to her, and she didn't...appreciate how important mine was to me. I let her know."

"Remind me to never piss you off."

"You're reminded..." She smiled slightly, brushed her lips against his bare chest. So very bare. She wondered when she'd get used to it.

"I'm sorry about Michelle. Another one to add to the list."

"No, she's mine. Her. Bruce. My list- "

"Sara, you wouldn't have a list if I hadn't gotten you- "

"Don't start this, Michael. I did have a choice, and mine was to get involved. I could've refused - _I_ chose not to." She sighed inwardly at his sad, shuttered expression, realising that he would never really accept her protestations. That she'd have to accept that.

"They'll be on them forever, you know," he said, softly. "On the lists. We'll never be able to cross them off."

"No, I don't see how."

"We have the chance to turn them into honour rolls, though. Remember everybody on them, and why they're there."

"Take down the bad guys?"

"All of them."

"Gretchen's mine."

He shook his head. "Ours."

"Deal. Ours..."

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

_There's no right or wrong  
This isn't a test  
And I won't lose my experience  
I won't try  
To put it aside  
But it's all right  
You know that it's all right  
It's all right  
It's gonna be all right_

_- _Beth Orton,_ Couldn't Cause Me Harm_

_-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  
_


End file.
